Earlier studies on the sensitivity of tropical cyclones to past climates have only analyzed the effect of
changes in the solar radiation from orbital forcing on the formation of tropical cyclones, without considering the feedbacks associated to the consequent greening of the Sahara.
Not exact matches
Such
changes range
from how much
solar radiation the region reflects back into space to the structure of the ecological communities
in Arctic waters; meanwhile, melting permafrost is driving the transformation of frozen tundra into wetlands, and grassy plains are shifting into lusher landscapes of bushes and trees.
In recent years, a brand of research called «climate attribution science» has sprouted from this question, examining the impact of extreme events to determine how much — often in fractional terms — is related to human - induced climate change, and how much to natural variability (whether in climate patterns such as the El Niño / La Niña - Southern Oscillation, sea - surface temperatures, changes in incoming solar radiation, or a host of other possible factors
In recent years, a brand of research called «climate attribution science» has sprouted
from this question, examining the impact of extreme events to determine how much — often
in fractional terms — is related to human - induced climate change, and how much to natural variability (whether in climate patterns such as the El Niño / La Niña - Southern Oscillation, sea - surface temperatures, changes in incoming solar radiation, or a host of other possible factors
in fractional terms — is related to human - induced climate
change, and how much to natural variability (whether
in climate patterns such as the El Niño / La Niña - Southern Oscillation, sea - surface temperatures, changes in incoming solar radiation, or a host of other possible factors
in climate patterns such as the El Niño / La Niña - Southern Oscillation, sea - surface temperatures,
changes in incoming solar radiation, or a host of other possible factors
in incoming
solar radiation, or a host of other possible factors).
Changes in insolation are also thought to have arisen
from small variations
in solar irradiance, although both timing and magnitude of past
solar radiation fluctuations are highly uncertain (see Chapters 2 and 6; Lean et al., 2002; Gray et al., 2005; Foukal et al., 2006).
The warming trends
in looking at numerous 100 year temperature plots
from northern and high elevation climate stations... i.e. warming trends
in annual mean and minimum temperature averages, winter monthly means and minimums and especially winter minimum temperatures and dewpoints... indicate climate warming that is being driven by the accumulation of greenhouse gases
in the atmosphere — no visible effects
from other things like
changes in solar radiation or the levels of cosmic rays.
The paragraph
in the OP you quote
from as well as the one above it
in full are saying that the ice age cycles result
from the Earth's
changing orbit round the sun which creates
changes in the «incoming
solar radiation (insolation) at high latitudes» (Roe (2006) PDF).
First, for
changing just CO2 forcing (or CH4, etc, or for a non-GHE forcing, such as a
change in incident
solar radiation, volcanic aerosols, etc.), there will be other GHE radiative «forcings» (feedbacks, though
in the context of measuring their radiative effect, they can be described as having radiative forcings of x W / m2 per
change in surface T), such as water vapor feedback, LW cloud feedback, and also, because GHE depends on the vertical temperature distribution, the lapse rate feedback (this generally refers to the tropospheric lapse rate, though
changes in the position of the tropopause and
changes in the stratospheric temperature could also be considered lapse - rate feedbacks for forcing at TOA; forcing at the tropopause with stratospheric adjustment takes some of that into account; sensitivity to forcing at the tropopause with stratospheric adjustment will generally be different
from sensitivity to forcing without stratospheric adjustment and both will generally be different
from forcing at TOA before stratospheric adjustment; forcing at TOA after stratospehric adjustment is identical to forcing at the tropopause after stratospheric adjustment).
Sunspot observations (going back to the 17th century), as well as data
from isotopes generated by cosmic
radiation, provide evidence for longer - term
changes in solar activity.
This is the portion of temperature
change that is imposed on the ocean - atmosphere - land system
from the outside and it includes contributions
from anthropogenic increases
in greenhouse gasses, aerosols, and land - use
change as well as
changes in solar radiation and volcanic aerosols.
Natural variability might modulate the flow of energy between parts of the system, such as
from ocean to atmosphere, but the «pace of climate warming», as
in the general gain
in energy (or loss of energy) of the entire climate system, can only be dictated by some external forcing, such as somthing that
changes the amount of
solar radiation reaching the surface, volcanoes, or
changes in GH gas concentrations.
radiative forcing a
change in average net
radiation at the top of the troposphere resulting
from a
change in either
solar or infrared
radiation due to a
change in atmospheric greenhouse gases concentrations; perturbance
in the balance between incoming
solar radiation and outgoing infrared
radiation
According to their modeling studies, the difference
in the amount of incoming
solar radiation,
in this case, primarily
in the ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths, during the minima and maxima of the 11 - yr
solar cycle are large enough to produce a characteristic
change in the winter circulation pattern of the atmosphere over North America... When the NAO is
in its negative phase, more cold air can seep south
from the Arctic and impact the lower latitudes of Europe and the eastern U.S., which helps spin up winter storm systems.
The cryosphere derives its importance to the climate system
from a variety of effects, including its high reflectivity (albedo) for
solar radiation, its low thermal conductivity, its large thermal inertia, its potential for affecting ocean circulation (through exchange of freshwater and heat) and atmospheric circulation (through topographic
changes), its large potential for affecting sea level (through growth and melt of land ice), and its potential for affecting greenhouse gases (through
changes in permafrost)(Chapter 4).
From 1899 to 1962, those ice fields more exposed to direct
solar radiation «wasted drastically» while those
in narrow, shaded grooves
changed very little, said Dr. Stefan L. Hastenrath, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, who is a longstanding expert on African glaciology.
This measure is available for the US
from the BEST data set... The reconfirmation now of a strong sun - temperature relation based specifically upon the daytime temperature maxima adds strong and independent scientific weight to the reality of the sun - temperature connection... This suggests strongly that
changes in solar radiation drive temperature variations on at least a hemispheric scale... Close correlations like these simply do not exist for temperature and
changing atmospheric CO2 concentration.»
We know the Asian aerosols have gone up, but for the Earth as a whole, there is very, very little
change in the reflected
solar radiation (just a blip
from Mount Pinatubo
in 1991 - 1993).
Prof David Keith
from Harvard University was the only presenter to address the controversial topic of
solar radiation management (SRM), hypothesising that if the technology could be used to offset half of the growth
in human - caused radiative forcing, it could substantially reduce the aggregated risks of climate
change.
The report, considerably more cautious, describes geoengineering as one element of a «portfolio of responses» to climate
change and examines the prospects of two approaches — removing carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere, and enveloping the planet
in a layer of sulfate particles to reduce the amount of
solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface.
As such, it can not capture the slow - down
in net anthropogenic forcings that allows the effects of declining
solar radiation and
changes from El Nino or La Nina to dominate the 1999 — 2008 period.
By applying what has been learned about
solar radiation changes from the recent measurements
from space, we can infer that this gradual build - up
in solar activity over several hundred years may have been accompanied by a parallel increase
in the
radiation received
from the Sun.
Estimates of Northern hemisphere surface temperatures
from 1610 to 1800 — during part of the so - called Little Ice Age — correlate well with a reconstruction of
changes in solar total
radiation — around the time of the Maunder Minimum (Fig. 2c).
It also requires the added assumption that long - term
changes in solar total
radiation can exceed by two and a half times what has been observed
in recent measurements
from space.
The origin of a slowly varying irradiance component may derive
from changes in the
solar faculae and / or
in the background
solar radiation from solar quiet regions.
Warming is greater
in the northern hemisphere, over land, and at night, greater
in the troposphere and cooler
in the stratosphere, all indications of greenhouse warming rather than warming
from solar radiation changes or other «natural» causes.
For the stratospheric sulphate idea, these fall into two classes -
changes to the physical climate as a function of the
changes in heating profiles
in solar and longwave
radiation, and chemical and ecological effects
from the addition of so much sulphur to the system.
For example, the global average effect of any
change in albedo
from using
solar power would be rather small
in comparison to mitigation of climate
change if that
solar power is used (to displace fossil fuels) for a sufficient time period (example: if a 10 % efficient PV panel with zero albedo (reflectivity for
solar (SW)
radiation) covered ground with an albedo of 25 — 30 %, the ratio of total increased heating to electricity generation would be similar to that of many fuel - combusting or fission - powered power plants (setting aside inverter and grid efficiency, etc., but still it would be similar).
For the stratospheric sulphate idea, these fall into two classes —
changes to the physical climate as a function of the
changes in heating profiles
in solar and longwave
radiation, and chemical and ecological effects
from the addition of so much sulphur to the system.
Three - dimensional (3D) planetary general circulation models (GCMs) derived
from the models that we use to project 21st Century
changes in Earth's climate can now be used to address outstanding questions about how Earth became and remained habitable despite wide swings
in solar radiation, atmospheric chemistry, and other climate forcings; whether these different eras of habitability manifest themselves
in signals that might be detected
from a great distance; whether and how planets such as Mars and Venus were habitable
in the past; how common habitable exoplanets might be; and how we might best answer this question with future observations.
Radiative Forcing A
change in average net
radiation (
in W m - 2) at the top of the troposphere resulting
from a
change in either
solar or infrared
radiation due to a
change in atmospheric greenhouse gases concentrations; perturbance
in the balance between incoming
solar radiation and outgoing infrared
radiation.